Friday, February 20, 2009

On Engineering Blogs and Bluffing

I've always been a big fan of the blogs published on the MIT admissions page. Establishment propaganda or not, I imagine they do a really good job of getting young little MIT freshmen excited about their school and preparing them for their first year.

However, I am a Canadian engineering student in second year. This means that: (a) I don't go to MIT, (b) I've already passed the excitement that is first year engineering, and (c) I can't really relate to institutions that bleed money.

Hence this blog. This blog is for every student that wishes their school was just a little bit better, for every engineer that secretly loves arts, and every arts student who really wanted to be an engineer; most of all though, this blog is for whoever the heck can find it.

But enough of the manifesto! I'd like to take a moment to bring the non-engineers up to speed so without further ado I present to you The Majugi Guide to Bluffing Through a Meeting of Engineers:

The engineering song: "We are, we are, we are the engineers / We can, we can demolish forty beers [alternatively: fix anything with gears]" after these two lines start mumbling but try to join in for the part that goes "and we don't give a damn for any damn [mumble] that don't give a damn for us."

Lady Godiva is the mascot / patron saint of engineering. She got the gig by riding naked through town on a horse.

Regardless of your gender, you believe there are not enough women in engineering.

Engineers who have graduated from Canadian universities receive Iron Rings. They are meant to be reminders of engineers' responsibilities as the iron was originally taken from a collapsed bridge in Quebec.

You cannot legally call yourself an engineer in Canada unless you have the P.Eng certification. Don't worry though, you can still blend in with engineering students by calling yourself a plummer (supposedly -- I've never actually heard anyone use the term).

If you're really having trouble breaking the ice, flap your arms together like a seal and repeat "arts, arts, arts" in your best seal-impression voice. [I can't claim to have come up with this on my own, but it's a sure-fire way of amusing engineers.]

...and for those of you who knew everything on that list I present The Majugi Guide to Appreciating Arts -- ie How to Avoid Being a Complete Douchebag:

Don't do that artsy seal impression in front of arts students.

Pick up and read a campus newspaper every once in a while.

Note that arts students actually have time, so they make great recruits for thankless but crucial roles in organizations such as Engineers Without Borders and student governments.

Student film festivals are amazing... particularly if admission is free for students.

Drama productions are usually surprisingly fun. Try to go on the last performance on the last day when they'll often allow heckling.

You're not a computer power user until you've used it to compose music, draw, do some 3D modelling or animation, or something similarly artsy. A very elegantly coded hash sort does not count.

To develop a quick appreciation for visual artists, try making your own graphics for a website, or a video game, or for the GUI of any fancy software project you might be working on. If you've tried this and you're smugly thinking it was easy, show your design to a non-engineer and watch as they recoil in horror.